ASE Sketches: Protoceratops Pit Fights & Catfish Cults

Some location/ encounter sketches for Anomalous Subsurface Environment/ Land of 1000 Towers.

Protoceratops Pit Fights
The lazy sorghum farmers of Chelmfordshire have all but abandoned agriculture in favor of protoceratops pit fights. The biggest barn in town has been outfitted with balconies overlooking a dirt pit, hemmed in with thick caging. Gauchos from the Certopsian Plains bring in their most aggressive bull protos to fight against various popular teams of hillbilly shire wrestlers. The wrestlers aren't terribly athletic, but can win a match by holding a dino down for the count or beating it unconscious. The dinos on the other hand, trample, maim and crush the wrestlers more often than not. Usually 4 or 5 matches a night. The farmer's prettiest daughters sell potent sorghum beer to the raucous crowd.

Plot Idea
The Denethix based fight club SPIRAL FRACTURE has caught on to the popularity of these hillbilly dinosaur fights, and has decided to take a closer look to see if they want to invest.  The owner Gus Lights, his sultry wife Blanche la Blanche, and the retired champ Rex Balls are in attendence.  They have brought their masked champion Johnny Karate to battle the dreaded Black Bull. The gauchos are fixing the fight though- even if they don’t know the extent of their involvement. An anonymous person gave them a large pink pill to give to Bull “2 hours before the fight”, for a guaranteed victory. The stranger is an agent for Spiral Fracture's arch rival, the fight club CONCUSSION INC. Secretly, Rex is having an ongoing affair with Blanche. The two of them are conspiring behind Gus' back to take out Karate. After getting a payout from Concussion Inc., they both plan on leaving him.

Black Bull staggers out of the cage, barely able to stand. Its breath is ragged, eyes bloody, and mouth oozing pink foam. It collapses after a few wobbly steps, seconds later its abdomen begins to bubble and fizz- a caustic wound opens up and a glistening pink substance begins to leak out.and coalesce into a long snake-like tentacle. It lashes at Karate. Karate can’t easily escape because the exit door is jammed. Unless prevented, the ooze will dissolve him and slither through the cage attacking the crowd at random. With every victim it killed, it grows in size and gains an additional 1d6 hit points.

Raided Farm & Indutrial Ruins
There is a raided sorghum farm to the north of town. The house is ransacked, farm animals killed and the humans gone. Spattering of blood here and there. Three toed tracks lead out through the sorghum fields to an area of ancient ruins.

North west of Chelmfordshire en route to Mt. Rendon, the merchant road passes through miles of ancient industrial ruins. The shells of dozens of massive concrete buildings, their steel girders twisted and poking out from collapsed piles of rubble, spread out in either direction. Some of the intact walls stand 30 to 50 feet in height, but are only fragments of shattered buildings. Piles of twisted metal, and coils of rusted and fused wire. Sink holes collapse into the earth, revealing flooded sublevels and dangerous catacombs.

There is one building, seemingly more intact than the others- the walls are mostly intact, reinforced with steel mesh and permacrete. It is a goblin egg-hive. A dozen egg sacks are fused to the walls, incubating and poking up beneath piles of dung and soil. Six goblins defend this ruin, all armed with bent short swords.

Giant Catfish Lake
At center of this industrial wreck lies a lake, some 300 feet across. Oil and slime glisten upon it’s still waters. Around the lake’s edge are dozens of crude fetishes made by the goblins. Animal skulls mounted on sharpened sticks with bones clacking in the wind. A few hastily made rafts are pulled up onto shore, the goblins tie their victims onto these and push them out into the lake to feed their master. A gargantuan catfish makes its home within the lake’s toxic depths. It has reached prodigous size and ferocity- attacking and devouring anything that might accidentally make its way into the waters.

A tribe of goblins has sworn obedience to the catfish and worship it like a god. They started sacrificing animals to it, and this satisfied it for a time- but its hunger grew. Using crude telepathy, it demanded manflesh from the goblins. Now the goblins have begun to abduct people to feed to their terrible, hungry, fishy overlord.

Dome of the Star Cult

A tiny dungeon for games set in the Land of 1000 Towers/ Anomalous Subsurface Environment campaign world.

Dome of the Star Cult
In the Sorghum fields west of Chelmfordshire, an anomalous hill juts like a massive goiter upon a rising crest of earth. A week ago during a terrible thunderstorm it was struck by lightning. Since then, farmer Jorml has been disturbed by strange whooshing and grating sounds by night. This morning he came to the fields, and to his surprise the grass covering the hill was gone. A dark dome 100 feet across, sheathed in overlapping black scale-like plates, loomed ominously where the hill once stood.

No visible way into the dome. Its surface is profoundly black, absorbing all light. This makes detecting any variations in the plated surface very difficult. Careful characters can detect one of the plates is a slightly different sheen (more reflective than the rest) about 20’ above ground at center on one side. If a charge of electricity is administered to the panel, it will automatically retract and produce a descending ramp. The plates themselves are an incredibly strong ceramic polymer, and cannot be broken by mundane means. They can be pried open with difficulty, but they are spring loaded and unless the character props them open somehow, they will likely snap shut inflicting 1d6 points of damage (roll a die to determine if the character is most of the way IN or OUT of the dome when the trap is sprung).

The dome rests upon an crest of earth. Below it, a stream is found rushing from the narrow mouth of a cave. An old grate blocks easy access into the cave, but it can be ripped out. The stream is hip deep, and gets progressively wider and deeper.  The stream leads to to a small underground pool, where a submerged gate leads to the much larger cistern beyond. 

Dome Interior Configuration
The dome is configured into four levels. Sublevel: cistern temple, 1st Level: catwalk & outer rooms, 2nd level: orrery, 3rd level: observatory.

Sublevel/ Cistern
An underground cistern, 6 feet deep, 50 x 50 feet in size. 20 foot columns rise up to the ceiling; the bases of which are giant blocks carved in the likeness of various God faces.  A crumbled catwalk lead out to a dais at the center of the cistern which is surrounded by a ring of obelisks, each has a heavily damaged 3 foot silver disk angled down at it’s height of 10 feet, with circuitry running down. One particular God’s Eye is undamaged but the conduits running up the monolith are torn out. A black box about halfway up the columns height is busted with red wires sticking out. It can be repaired with circuits harvested from the upper levels with a successful Intelligence check. Matte black metal spiral stairs wind tightly upward to the 1st level.

Blind White Catfish the size of a man swim in the water and are attracted to any distirbance. [AC 7,  HD 2,  Att: bite 1d6 + paralyzing stinger/ 1d3 rounds]. Catfish venom sacks can be harvested, and used to coat weapons or create potions, etc.

1st Level/ Catwalk & Outer Rooms
A black grill catwalk with stairs in a central column leading up and down. Broken screens punctuated with ornamental friezes of Star Cult mythology line the walls. Sliding doors can be pushed open into a series of connected rooms running in an outer ring. The inner rooms are filled with debris, scattered data disks strewn upon the floor, broken electronics equipment, and the bones of several dead bodies.

(4) Cave Crickets have nested into the piles of debris [AC 4, HD 2, Att: jumping slam (60') 1d4, or spit digestive juice (10') 1d6 acid damage, corrodes items]. Coins and broken electronics are scattered among the rubble.

2nd Level/ Orrery Room
On the top floor is a massive orrery. The circular room is dominated by a brass and composite model of earth and her orbital satellite gods. A six foot blue planetoid at center with several hundred metal arms protruding spoke like from center, each supporting a tiny complicated geometric metal shapes, each with a strange character painted on it. A control panel is broken, but if repaired, turns on a light diode that illuminates the blue orb, and sets the whole thing into a slow rotation. A ladder leads up to a higher level.

3rd Level/ Observatory
Here an 8 foot chrome and brass cylinder pointed towards the sky on a rotating dias, its delicate parts are ruined, but it’s 3 lenses are intact, and will fetch a good price from the Temple of Science (500 gp each). A massive angled chair is at its base. A leathery corpse is strapped in. Smells of dust and ammonia. Face is stretched in a disturbing grin. A reflective glossy black substance is pooled into its eye sockets. Wearing a robe with silvery embroidered stars and eyes. Carries a spellbook with a three-lobed eye on the face, spells as if a 3rd level Magic User.

Electrical tubes run along the walls here, and along the floor to the dias. Large spoked turning wheels and gears are visible. Several smaller reclined chairs create a ring around the edge of the room, each has a headrest that has an attached set of telescopic goggles that can be swiveled over a sitters eyes. All of the goggles are damaged, but a single pair can salvaged by using viable parts with a successful Intelligence test.

A Shadows from Space was drawn to Earth by the Cult of the Starry Wisdom, and now dwells in the eye socket of the corpse.  It manifests as a sphere of liquid blackness about 8 inches across, and emits a low humming sound. It has been dormant for a century and is eager to reproduce in a new host. It follows a PC stealthily, and attacks from behind, slamming into its victim and burrowing into their flesh with icy cold tendrils.

Shadow From Space [AC 5, HD 3+1, Att 1d6 (slam) + 1d3 point strength drain/ heals 1 point per day] With a successful hit, tiny black shadowy worms dislodge and begin to burrow into the flesh of its victim, draining away strength. For 1d6 hours after, the characters' eyes turn completely black, they are granted Infravision. Even when the effects wear off, the characters' eyes remain black for 1d6 more days. If the character reaches 0 Strength, they die, and a new shadow is immediately spawned within their body, and will exit out of any convenient orifice.